A series of proposals tabled by the country’s biggest unions ahead of next month’s TUC conference call for them to work closely together to maximize their impact and “win” the fight for inflation-linked pay rises. The move, which includes the two biggest unions, Unison and Unite, comes amid growing anger over the government’s failure to agree a detailed help package for families after Friday’s announcement that average gas and electricity bills would increase by 80%. While the concerted action would not be a “general strike” that some union leaders have called for, Unite’s proposal would give the TUC the task of ensuring that strikes are synchronized or deliberately scaled to have the greatest impact. Backed by rail union RMT – which has led its members on a series of strikes in recent weeks – and the Communications Workers Union, which took action on Friday, Unite is calling on the TUC to “facilitate and encourage industrial coordination between of unions so that workers in The dispute can more effectively use their union power to win”. Another motion from Unison, the country’s biggest union, says the cost of living crisis is a “low pay crisis” and also demands the TUC co-ordinate union action to campaign for pay rises “at least in line with inflation ” – now 10.1% – as well as for a minimum wage of £15 an hour. The signs of turmoil underline the size of the problem now facing the next Conservative prime minister, Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak, as rising energy costs drive inflation further up. Union militancy will also embarrass Keir Starmer, the Labor leader. He recently called on his frontmen not to support rail strikes. Starmer, whose party gets much of its funding from trade unions, is due to make his first speech in person as leader at the TUC’s inaugural conference in Brighton on September 11. Unite general secretary Sharon Graham, whose 1,900 dockers at Felixstowe, the country’s biggest port, are on eight-day strike action, cited the example of the ongoing rail dispute, which she said was “crucial” to win the RMT. “If we were going on a bus strike, why wouldn’t we coordinate the two?” he told the Observer. “You want to make sure we provide as much support as possible. Now, that is the role of the TUC to see you do that.” Graham made it clear that she was not talking about illegal collateral action — one union is not in dispute claims another is — but rather coordination among unions whose members voted to strike over separate pay differences. Within its own multi-sector union, it said, Felixstowe and Liverpool docks, both with industrial action orders over separate wage claims, could well strike at the same time. “If it helps them to strike together, why not?” Ministers will be concerned about the extent of potential strike action reflected in the TUC proposals. In response to the government’s plans to cut 91,000 civil servant jobs, the First Division Association, which represents senior civil servants, is calling on the next prime minister to abandon the “disastrous approach of arbitrary cuts”, while the Civil and Commercial Services Union is calling on the TUC to “support industrial action aimed at preventing job cuts and co-ordinate such action with other trade unions in dispute where possible”. As unrest spreads, the GMB union is set to vote over 50,000 school assistants on whether to accept a £1,925 pay rise offered by local authority employers. The GMB is also polling more than 100,000 local government workers on their pay deal, while the Royal College of Nursing is preparing to consult its members on whether they would be prepared to go on strike. Senior government sources said Truss, the likely winner of the Conservative leadership contest, would be ready to deliver an emergency budget with measures to help people with energy costs “very soon” after he was announced as winner on September 5. While Truss said on the campaign trail that her priority was to make tax cuts, not “handouts”, in recent days she has also made it clear she will help those most in need – without specifying what that would entail. George Eustice, the environment secretary, said yesterday that people “don’t have long to wait”, but added that both Truss and Sunak “would like to look at all options, properly costed”.
